fxgn's recent activity

  1. Comment on The West doesn’t understand how much Russia has changed in ~misc

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    Honestly, in my experience, there are more websites that block visitors with a Russian IP than websites that are actually blocked by the government.

    Lastly, government blocking websites and services forcing the usage of VPN is a big roadblock.

    Honestly, in my experience, there are more websites that block visitors with a Russian IP than websites that are actually blocked by the government.

  2. Comment on The West doesn’t understand how much Russia has changed in ~misc

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    Russia has had an incredible local software market for a very long time. And unlike China, where this local software is basically forced by the government, the Russian software market developed...

    Russia has had an incredible local software market for a very long time. And unlike China, where this local software is basically forced by the government, the Russian software market developed organically and competed with western alternatives by offering a better product. It really does suck that many western software companies quit Russia - but not because we relied on their services, it's just bad that a lot of those local companies became monopolies with no incentive to improve.

    Russian software market mostly stands upon the shoulders of two tech giants - Yandex and VK (previously mail.ru).

    To call Yandex "the Russian Google" is probably an understatement. They offer alternatives to basically all existing Google services, while also owning a lot of other stuff such as:

    • Both major food delivery platforms - Yandex Food and Delivery Club. Delivery Club used to be owned by VK, but they traded it to Yandex in exchange for Zen, a blog service similar to Medium.
    • The biggest taxi service - Uber Russia was owned by Yandex Taxi for a long time, but there still were some alternatives such as Gett. Now that they all quit the country, Yandex Taxi is the only option.
    • The biggest music service - since you can no longer pay on foreign sites with a Russian card, using Spotify stopped being a viable option for most citizens, so everyone had to switch to Yandex Music.
    • Best in class voice assistant - Yandex Alice assistant is much smarter than Google Assistant or Alexa, and it's also the only assistant that properly supports Russian language. A lot of people I know, including me, own a Yandex smart speaker
    • And much more...

    VK is mostly known for owning https://VK.com, the biggest Russian social media site which was created back in 2006 by Pavel Durov (who now runs Telegram) and is used by many Russian people. However, VK is expanding the amount of stuff they own, although they're still not as big as Yandex.

    We also have some huge independent websites though. For example, while Amazon and eBay used to ship to Russia, the shipping still took a very long time, so local alternatives were created. Ozon and Wildberries are biggest Russian e-commerce platforms that exist for about 20 years, and they have always been more popular than Amazon. We also have Avito, which is a marketplace, similar to eBay.

    Russia also has the best Fintech I've ever seen. I know that there is Revolut in US and Europe, which was started by two Russian guys. What Revolut does is basically the bare minimum for good banks in Russia, every bank has an incredible mobile app that lets you do everything you'd ever need. And there is a single official payment standard for all banks, so you can instantly transfer money to any person with no fees.

    So, overall, while I don't see much new services popping up (Windows is here to stay, for example), we already have an established digital ecosystem that we used for many years and continue to use.

    Honestly, the IT market is one of the few parts of my country that I am proud of. It is really a shame that the stupid decisions of the government have lead to our IT market being cut off from the rest of the world - I think many of our companies could've had a big success internationally. And of course, as I said, it sucks that they're all monopolies now, with zero reasons to improve because people have no other choice but to use their services.

    22 votes

  3. Comment on The West doesn’t understand how much Russia has changed in ~misc

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    Dobriy did not make any drinks similar to Coca Cola, Sprite or Fanta before 2022. They were primarily a packaged juice company. They started producing those beverages after Coca Cola left, and...

    Coca Cola sells syrup to local bottlers. When they pull out, the local companies don’t shut down. Maybe the syrup isn’t quite the same, but the can find something similar.

    Dobriy did not make any drinks similar to Coca Cola, Sprite or Fanta before 2022. They were primarily a packaged juice company. They started producing those beverages after Coca Cola left, and immediately appeared in all grocery stores, while other Cola manufacturers were trying to fight for their place under the sun in anticipation of Coca Cola leaving. This leads me to believe that it's not just a local bottler continuing their old business, but more likely a deal that Coca Cola made.

    13 votes

  4. Comment on The West doesn’t understand how much Russia has changed in ~misc

    fxgn
    Link
    I'm from Russia. It is true that most products in the consumer market have a replacement. Stuff is shipped from China or Turkey, some things are produced directly in Russia. Some brands only...

    I'm from Russia.

    It is true that most products in the consumer market have a replacement. Stuff is shipped from China or Turkey, some things are produced directly in Russia.

    Some brands only pretended to exit the Russian market - for example, almost immediately after Coca Cola stopped sales in Russia, a beverage named "Dobriy Cola" appeared on the shelves. And if you look up Multon, the company that makes the drink, you'll find that it's name before 2022 was... "Coca Cola HBC". Huh.

    However, I don't agree with the point that we strongly depend on China and no longer depend on the west. Some western companies just can't be replaced - for example, it's really hard to find good clothes in Russia nowadays. And Chinese smartphones are not popular because of the sanctions - they're only popular because they're much cheaper, and a lot of the Russian population can't afford a $1000 smartphone. Pretty much everyone who could afford those phones still uses an iPhone or a Samsung or whatever, they barely got more expensive after the sanctions.

    Basically the only market where China is probably set to overtake western products because of the sanctions is the car market. Still though, they're very far away from it. I'm looking out of a taxi window right now and don't see a single Chinese car on the road. They're basically perceived as a novelty and most people don't want to buy one yet, although we realize that it may become the best option soon.

    I'm happy to answer questions about the topic if you have any.

    45 votes

  5. Comment on Honest Question: Why did PHP remove dynamic properties in 8.x? in ~comp

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    Yes, but that's what version numbers mean. The major version number in semver means "there are breaking changes". So if you're upgrading from PHP 8.x to 9.x, breaking changes are to be expected.

    Yes, but that's what version numbers mean. The major version number in semver means "there are breaking changes". So if you're upgrading from PHP 8.x to 9.x, breaking changes are to be expected.

    5 votes

  6. Comment on How do you organize your Linux packages? in ~comp

    fxgn
    Link
    I'm using a custom build of Fedora Silverblue made with BlueBuild. This means that my OS is basically a docker image - it gets automatically updated in GitHub CI every day and all of the system...

    I'm using a custom build of Fedora Silverblue made with BlueBuild. This means that my OS is basically a docker image - it gets automatically updated in GitHub CI every day and all of the system packages and configurations are a part of that image. That way I don't have anything unnecessary installed on my system.

    For user packages (eg. development stuff), I use homebrew. You might think that Homebrew is only for macOS, but it is available for Linux, and has multiple core benefits for my setup:

    1. It installs everything in a user-writable directory under /home, which means that it works on my system, where / is read-only
    2. It allows listing your packages declaratively in a Brewfile. This way, again, I know that I'm not creating a mess and I only have the packages that I want to have installed. I can also just install whatever I want using brew and all unnecessary packages will be deleted the next time I run brew bundle --cleanup (although my dotfile manager, chezmoi, handles this step for me).
    3. Since it's not tied to any specific distro, I can install my dotfile repo on any Linux machine (chezmoi makes this a one-command task) and I will have all of the same packages which I have on my main system, without adding any extra junk into the new system

    For all of the GUI stuff. I just use Flatpaks. They're the best way to install GUI applications, and almost everything is available as a Flatpak.

    1 vote

  7. Comment on Honest Question: Why did PHP remove dynamic properties in 8.x? in ~comp

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    JavaScript is executed by the client, while PHP is executed on the server. With JS, you can't control what environment your code will run in - if someone updates their browser, JS gets updated as...

    something more like strict mode in JavaScript to keep it from breaking existing code bases.

    JavaScript is executed by the client, while PHP is executed on the server. With JS, you can't control what environment your code will run in - if someone updates their browser, JS gets updated as well, so it needs to have full backwards compatibility, which leads to hacks like use strict and ===. With PHP though, if you don't want to upgrade, you can just not do that. There are still many websites running on PHP 5 or probably even older versions. So it's fine to make breaking changes, especially if they're announced one version prior by adding a deprecation warning.

    4 votes

  8. Comment on Honest Question: Why did PHP remove dynamic properties in 8.x? in ~comp

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    Alright, I stand corrected on that part. I guess I just assumed it doesn't let you do that because I always use mypy.

    Alright, I stand corrected on that part. I guess I just assumed it doesn't let you do that because I always use mypy.

    8 votes

  9. Comment on Honest Question: Why did PHP remove dynamic properties in 8.x? in ~comp

    fxgn
    (edited )
    Link
    I've never used PHP myself so I can't really comment on whether it's good or bad, however, I managed to find the original proposal which explains why dynamic properties should be removed:...
    • Exemplary

    I've never used PHP myself so I can't really comment on whether it's good or bad, however, I managed to find the original proposal which explains why dynamic properties should be removed:

    https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deprecate_dynamic_properties

    Basically, they're not trying to completely delete dynamic properties, they're just trying to make them opt-in:

    When writing to a property that has not been declared, PHP will silently create a dynamic property instead. In modern code, this is rarely done intentionally. This RFC proposes to deprecate and later remove the creation of dynamic properties, unless the class explicitly allows dynamic properties. stdClass and __get/__set are not affected by this change.

    class User {
    public $name;
}

$user = new User;

// Assigns declared property User::$name.
$user->name = "foo";

// Oops, a typo:
$user->nane = "foo";
// PHP <= 8.1: Silently creates dynamic $user->nane property.
// PHP    8.2: Raises deprecation warning, still creates dynamic property.
// PHP    9.0: Throws Error exception.

    The proposal also goes into more detail about what benefits this has, so you should still read it, it's pretty short

    As I said, I'm not a PHP user, but this makes total sense to me. I think accessing a non-existent property is an error most of the times, and it should be reported by your editor as an error. And if you need dynamic properties, you can still opt into using them for a specific class.

    I'm also not really sure where you got the idea that Python supports something like this? Maybe I misunderstood what you mean, but python absolutely does not let you access a non-existent class attribute and throws an error if you try to do so. Python is dynamic, yes, but it is a strongly-typed language, unlike something like JS, which does let you access non-existent variables and just returns undefined or creates a new field.

    15 votes

  10. Comment on Open-source self-hosted Google photos alternative in ~tech

  11. Comment on GPT-4o in ~tech

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    And GPT can predict the next word in a sentence. We understand "what it does" just as well as we understand books. And books can have a huge impact on humankind, both bad or good.

    Books can be read.

    And GPT can predict the next word in a sentence. We understand "what it does" just as well as we understand books. And books can have a huge impact on humankind, both bad or good.

    6 votes

  12. Comment on GPT-4o in ~tech

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    I think they like the AI as their creation, in the same way that a writer can love a book they created or a painter can love their painting. Why does it become disturbing if it's about AI?

    I think they like the AI as their creation, in the same way that a writer can love a book they created or a painter can love their painting. Why does it become disturbing if it's about AI?

    13 votes

  13. Comment on Any recommendations on places to visit in Singapore? There for a week. in ~travel

    fxgn
    Link
    Check out Little India, it's a very interesting place. Also you should see the Artscience museum.

    Check out Little India, it's a very interesting place. Also you should see the Artscience museum.

    1 vote

  14. Comment on I'm curious how people on here stay politically engaged and aware while maintaining mental health? in ~life

  15. Comment on Bitwarden transitions from Manifest V2 to V3 in ~tech

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    Well, Chrome also plans to remove many of the ways websites can track you, like third party cookies for example. Of course, the other side of the coin is that since you're using chrome, google...

    I dislike that my extensions are limited, but not the websites I load.

    Well, Chrome also plans to remove many of the ways websites can track you, like third party cookies for example.

    Of course, the other side of the coin is that since you're using chrome, google will still be able to track you, they'll just be the ONLY company that can do it now

    6 votes

  16. Comment on Is Nebula worth it? in ~tech

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    Hey, just want to let you know that I watched that video on YouTube and it was actually the video after which I made this post lol. And they do actually grow meat cells inside of Gatorade, that...

    I am met with a picture of a Gatorade bottle pointed at a slab of meat.

    Hey, just want to let you know that I watched that video on YouTube and it was actually the video after which I made this post lol. And they do actually grow meat cells inside of Gatorade, that channel is actually pretty cool, you should check it out.

    But I do get what you mean, I do look at the Nebula "explore" page sometimes and I did see the clickbaity stuff.

    6 votes

  17. Comment on Is Nebula worth it? in ~tech

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    Does the $50 -> $30 price drop when using a creator code last forever, or is it only for the first year? $30 does seem like a better price for it.

    Does the $50 -> $30 price drop when using a creator code last forever, or is it only for the first year? $30 does seem like a better price for it.

    2 votes

  18. Is Nebula worth it?

    ~tech Ask (advice)
    Is anyone here using https://nebula.tv? Multiple creators I watch are on there, and I'm considering getting a subscription, but I'm just not sure if it's really worth it. Most channels on there...

    Is anyone here using https://nebula.tv? Multiple creators I watch are on there, and I'm considering getting a subscription, but I'm just not sure if it's really worth it. Most channels on there don't seem to upload any exclusive content, so I'll basically just get the same videos but for $5/month instead of for free. I've also heard that the app and UX isn't that great.

    People who use the service, what makes it worth it for you? Is it just a way to support the creators more?

    61 votes

  19. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    Perhaps you could use the prefers-color-scheme CSS media query and do the colorscheme switching directly in your styles? That way there'll be no delay, and users who use a dark theme will see a...

    Perhaps you could use the prefers-color-scheme CSS media query and do the colorscheme switching directly in your styles? That way there'll be no delay, and users who use a dark theme will see a dark version of your site

    1 vote

  20. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    fxgn
    Link Parent
    If you don't want to load custom fonts, you can check out Modern Font Stacks, which provides a lot of font stacks of pre-installed fonts. Though, realistically, since your website is hosted on...

    If you don't want to load custom fonts, you can check out Modern Font Stacks, which provides a lot of font stacks of pre-installed fonts.

    Though, realistically, since your website is hosted on Cloudflare pages, font loading should be very quick because of their CDNs, compression and caching. Also, if you found a cool font on Google Fonts but don't want to add Google trackers onto your page, Cloudflare has a feature you can enable that automatically replaces all Google Fonts imports with self hosted fonts on your page. Sites that I linked above use multiple custom fonts, but they load almost instantly.

    I was viewing your website in light mode, I actually think that the color scheme in dark mode looks nicer. Btw, the website resets to light mode any time I click on any link or reload the page, you should probably store it in a cookie.

    2 votes